With great eagerness, Examining the Scriptures Although tolerance is a "hard" word for fundamentalist, it is nevertheless essential to understand another's point of view. With that in mind, this page is designed to offer differing opinions. The hope of Soma, is that the reader will search out the "truth", as the Spirit permits. The ulitmate goal is to develop a routine of "examining the scriptures daily...to see whether these things are" truly grounded in biblical truth. (Acts 17:11)
God as gender One writer submitted this on the subject: "Although I am comfortable saying "father" in liturgy and prayer, I think it hinders my relationship with God because, as I read in a book somewhere, those of us who were fearful of our earthly fathers are often fearful of our Holy Father. For some of us, the only way to have a good relationship with God is to know that God is not specifically `he'but a glorious amalgam of `he and she.' Is this a semantics issue, where it's an issue of pronouns (he or she)? Or is this something deeper?" Another author penned these thoughts:"I'm Roman Catholic and I also say `Our Father'when I pray the Lord's prayer. That being said, I TRY very hard to not just go with what I was raised with and always say `him' and part of that comes from the fact my previous PASTOR was very very in favor or inclusive language. In many places during the liturgy now it is becoming `habit'or `ritual'for me to say the word God instead of `his or him'. I noticed many around me do this also - were doing it well before I made a conscious effort to try. I was a bit resistant when there were certain songs they didn't want our teen choir to sing because it referred to God in solely the male pronoun, mainly because I thought it was a wonderful song and I am part of the hu`man'race." What do you think?
Is there such a thing as absolute truth? A friend of mine in seminary wrote:"I'm prepared to say that we're free to interpret our scriptures as we choose, but there's something simply distasteful to me in using their words to worship a foreign god (Jesus... who, believe me, is a foreign god to them). It's like my priest friend saying that `everyone from all religions will find their faith brings them to Jesus in death'... how disrespectful of other people's truth." Do we have a right to be emphatic about our beliefs?